Many nights we'd rather have an earlier press start, so our carriers could get The Olympian distributed to your door earlier, but we have a business commitment to print USAToday.
Last night we were grateful for that late deadline. Associated press broke the tragic and unexpected news just after midnight our time that the West Virginia miners earlier thought to have survived had not. Assistant news editor Chad Scheer and others on our copy desk immediately redesigned the front page and two inside pages to deliver the news.
They had to work fast to re-do their pages and still make press start. Theirs is a high-pressure role -- moving fast but paying attention to every detail and keeping an eye on the clock. Their attentiveness meant we were able to provide readers the latest word this morning in our print product, information that is being updated online throughout the day.
Our colleagues at other newspapers were less fortunate, running the earlier stories suggesting the miners had been found alive. Today, many editors are second-guessing what happened, how the wrong information was spread so quickly, and are doing a post-mortem in their own newsrooms.
Every day in this industry we have to be prepared to turn on a dime. When we don't make it we hope you will understand. But on days we succeed -- and we think those are in the majority -- we hope you appreciate it.
